Tuesday, November 6, 2007

Six Places

Today, I visited the offices of Awesome U, and for five hours, I graded papers for other professors. For this service, I will be paid $30 an hour. While I was there, people brought me food and coffee and patted my hair and told me how much they love me and how sorry they are that they cannot pay me $1000 an hour for my judicious grading and thoughtful commenting.

Ahem. Panic Hire University still has not put me on the payroll, although they did write a check out of petty cash for $500, which basically covers the first half of September. Then they said "go away already there are donuts in the break room and if you don't stop talking about your issue by the time I get back there all the ones with frosting will be gone."

Sweet Little College still gives me an absurd amount of money for what I do for them, which is basically.... nothing. I live in fear of someone at SLC actually figuring out that I can do a full time tenured professor's job in about five hours a week.

Ahem. Merciful University has, to my shock, chosen NOT to kick me out of their PhD program. I am all "I am tired and I need to teach for money and my dad is sick and my rent went up and I have papers to grade and I never read Beowulf" and they are all "get ur asz in heer and do yer werk, stoopid beyatch." At least, I think that is what they said.

Hoops University has... oh my... how do I... oh dear... published my Master's thesis online. This means that anyone who knows my real name and happens to google me will find out that I did a creative thesis - all short stories. This is reason #127 that I am confident that using a psuedonym for blogging was... a good decision.

Prestigious U has asked me to return as an ACT Reader. It turns out that this summer, when I was reading ACTs for them - due to their desperate staffing issues - I was a "no hitter". What this means is that I, as a first round grader, could consistently assign scores that would match the scores later assigned by what is known as a Master Reader. Hiring "no hitters" makes their job ever so much easier. I haven't called them back. Nor have I emailed the man. I am, emotionally speaking, very busy.

I am finding that during NaBloPoMo, the stress of knowing that I MUST POST ONCE A DAY has caused me to post two or three times a day. I post something and then I am displeased with it, and so I post something else to "cover it up". This post is meant to push Great Eagle Rescues of Middle Earth, Chapter Two, further down the page. That other writing project? NaNoWriMo? Kicking my ass. But not in the way you might think. The daunting word count does not frighten me. What frightens me is that sometime between batch one and two of grading this afternoon, Joel U. Q. T. Skimpole popped into my head and mentioned, ever so politely, that he didn't mind that I had given him a mother that did not love him, but... really... was it necessary to make her a whore as well?

What this means, reader, is that J.S. is in no danger of going unheard. I might not be up to my assigned wordcount, but J.S. will not let me be until I solve his housing problem and his romantic difficulties and supply him with good liquor and cigars.

Who are these people?

Bibi - God bless the guy who gets Bee. I can't even think of anything obnoxious to say about her. She can eat pasta without gaining weight, she can run the ridges at Gertrude's Nose with no fear, and she is by miles the best climber of all of us. She's going to Kili with us. Hell, she'll be leading.

Jib computer wizard, entrepreneur, stand-up comedian, stand-up guy I can count on to catch a movie and hold hands in the dark without it having any meaning whatosever. Every woman needs a man like Jib.

Merry - Australian BFF spends the summers on a yacht, nannying for a celebrity couple with two children. She lives in a brownstone and she has a chauffeur. And we have no idea who she works for.

Newsy has been my friend for about 22,000 hours. Or more. I don't have a calculator. She has about 3423% more professional and personal commitments than I do, and yet she still finds time to think about me. I find this astonishing. If you knew her, you'd be astonished, too.

Pax - climber, hiker, corporate warrior, used to date Joe. Sticks by Larry in spite of his horribleness. None of us understands this.

Skatey- he rides a skateboard. He can dance. He can throw a frisbee and he's not bad at karaoke, either.

Sri - Bengali princess who, aside from kicking my ass at climbing, and aside from being a smokin' hiker, brought down the evil empire of Larry and also once told me that "even girls' are turned on my breasts." Also never turns down "one more round."

Supajewie - Long distance drinking buddy, just about the only person I know who "gets it". And no, she's not Jewish. It's a long story.

Tex - is what happens when you take a normal man, add alcohol, subtract common sense and tact, and then buy him another drink.

Things I have done

Sky diving (5 times)

Class 5 white water rafting many times

Ice climbing at Mt. Washington (repeatedly)

Skiied at Mt. St. Anne (Quebec)

Hiked the Ruby Mountains (when I was 6)

Hiked Thorsmork in Iceland

Rock climbed in the Adirondaks

Rock climbed in the Gunks

Gertrude's Nose (repeatedly)

Breakneck Ridge (repeatedly)

Hiked the Sahara Desert

Hiked the Inca Trail to Macchu Picchu

Things I want to do

Whatever Mischa wants to do in Guatemala (Summer, 2008)

Hike El Carbon Mountains (Honduras)

Hike Choquequirao (Peru)

Summit Snowmass Mountain (Colorado)

Nose Route, El Capitan (who am I kidding?)

Summit Mt. Ranier

Summit Mt. Washington, winter ascent (January, 2008)

Summit Kilimanjaro (August, 2008)

GR20 (2009)

Whatever Mischa wants to do in Guatemala (Summer, 2008)

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English Teacher Disclaimer

I teach English, and I sometimes get a emotional about grammar, punctuation, and usage. I sometimes write posts about other people's grammar - or mine. This does not mean, however, that my blog is without errors. I constantly go back and edit for typos and sometimes even... misspelled words *clutching skull and gagging*. If you find a mistake feel free to call me out on it. I will persist in making mistakes whether I attempt to catch them or not, and I will continue to be my bitchy English teacher self despite my capacity to screw up just as often as the next person... and maybe more.